Bailiwick of Conti
Situated on the eponymous island (49.179°N 2.107°W), Conti is a communal republic and mercantile city-state, home to a community of industrious seafarers devoted to the advancement of commerce, the principles of good government and the preservation of true freedom (Libertas). |connectedresources = |bonusresources = }} Instrument of Government The Instrument of Government promotes good governance through deliberative policy-making mechanisms and a collegial exercise of power, centred on the States of Conti and the Council of Ten. The States of Conti is the unicameral legislature of the bailiwick. It consists of 100 deputies elected for a single term of seven years. The Council of Ten is the executive governing body of the bailiwick. Its members, elected from among the States of Conti (of which it is a constituent part), are: *The Chancellor of Justice, Keeper of the Seals *The Controller-General of Finances *The Paymaster-General *The Councillor of State for Commerce *The Councillor of State for War *The Councillor of State for Education *The Councillor of State for Research and Technology *The Councillor of State for Health *The Councillor of State for the Environment *The Councillor of State for Public Works The Bailiff, '''elected by co-optation from among the Council of Ten for a single one-year term, presides over sessions of the Council and performs ceremonial functions. The Councillor of State for War is the only member of the Council of Ten not eligible for the position. The '''States-General is a temporary legislative assembly, consisting of 300 elected deputies, vested with the exclusive authority to review and amend the Instrument of Government. Its promulgations are irrevocable, cannot be overturned by the States of Conti and cannot be subjected to a referendum. The States-General can sit for a maximum of 90 days after which it is dissolved and law-making powers revert to the States of Conti. The power to convoke the States-General is the sole prerogative of the States of Conti. The document ascribes seven basic functions to the civic authorities: *Dispense justice *Uphold the inviolability of private property *Enforce contracts *Administer finances *Preserve the soundness of the currency (ƒ1≃ $100) *Maintain civic amenities *Preserve the public peace Conti operates a single taxation system to finance its public expenditure in the form of a value-added tax capped at a maximum rate of 30 per cent known as the Universal Impost. A higher level of taxation is rejected as confiscatory and inimical to the public interest. Conti’s legislation on citizenship is governed by the jus sanguinis principle. Citizenship is acquired at birth if either of the parents is a citizen of Conti. In effect, political participation and the exercise of citizenship rights in Conti’s overseas dominions are restricted to residents of Conti descent. Naturalisation can only be granted by a private act of the States. Although Conti's institutional arrangement and form of government is representative in character, the Instrument of Government allows for a degree of direct democracy. Citizens can challenge or propose legislation via referendum if a public petition is signed by a fifth of all registered voters. The right to vote is restricted to adults age 20 or over who fulfill the property qualification - defined as owning a property or ƒ1,000 in business capital. The New Guildhall is the seat of government and the nerve centre of the administrative machinery of state. New Guildhall is in fact a metonym for the complex of municipal government buildings occupying the site of the city's old Guildhall, the former headquarters of the merchant guilds, purchased and redeveloped by the new communal regime after the abolition of the guilds on 28 February 2009 (itself the momentous event in the aftermath of which the bailiwick's institutions acquired their present character). State-Chartered Companies The Company of the Orient (COR) and the Company of the Occident (COC) are mercantile companies established by an act of the States of Conti on 5 June 2009 to further Conti's overseas commercial expansion. Both corporations possess a Charter of Privileges issued by the States guaranteeing special trading rights with territories lying respectively east and west of the Prime Meridian. Conferred privileges include fiscal exemptions aimed at stimulating the growth of trade in raw commodities and securing continuing access to energy supplies, the right to maintain warships, wage war and conclude treaties independently. All military, naval and diplomatic undertakings by the COR and COC are carried out in the name of the States of Conti and the relevant company (COR and COC commanders and chief factors swear a double oath of allegiance to the company and the States). Ships operated or owned by the Company of the Orient have the privilege to sail under the company’s house flag in lieu of Conti's merchant ensign. This privilege was extended on 14 August 2013 to permit its use on land in territories under the company's administration. On 27 August 2011, The Company of the Orient obtained patents from the Council of Ten to undertake the colonisation of territories. The COR is the only and supreme authority in its subject territories under the sovereign supervision of the States of Conti. The Company of the Occident secured similar arrangements on 20 September 2011. It would take until 30 December 2016 for the COC to acquire its first territory overseas with the purchase of the Caribbean island of Saint-Barthélemy (17.90°N 62.83°W) from the king of Sweden for the sum of ƒ458,600. Piracy originating from the island of Bali (8.20°S 115.00°E) reached alarming levels by the second half of 2011, dangerously disrupting the COR’s trade with the Indies and driving marine insurance rates to unsustainable highs. The Directorial Committee (the company's board of directors), having recently secured advantageous patents from the Council of Ten, dispatched a naval squadron of four warships to the region on 2 December 2011 (frigates Nemesis and Themis and destroyers Titan and Leviathan) to patrol Indonesian waters and secure company shipping with the Indies. The COR’s expeditionary force stormed north Bali’s main port, Buleleng, on 14 January 2012. A systematic campaign of land conquest ensued culminating in the removal of local potentates and the subjugation of the island to company rule. The sister-islands of Nusa Lembongan, Nusa Penida and Nusa Ceningan fell in quick succession. At a stroke, the acquisition of this first permanent base for its long distance colonial commerce in Asia transformed the Company of the Orient from mercantile arm of the Conti thalassocracy into an imperium in its own right. By contrast, the account of the Company of the Orient's presence in Singapore (1.30°N 103.80°E) is one of cooperation rather than confrontation with the titular lord of the land. It is under the aegis of the Sultan of Johor that the COR established a factory at the mouth of the Singapore River on 27 June 2012 and thus laid the foundation for the company's commercial penetration of the Malay Peninsula. In exchange for an annual tribute of ƒ144,000 and numerous off-the-books gifts to the court of Johor, successive Chief Factors of Singapore have gradually extracted from the Sultanate a series of privileges and franchises collectively known as the Capitulation Agreements. The First Capitulation granted extraterritorial rights to the company's merchants and employees within the confines of the trading post. The Second Capitulation accorded on 31 December 2015 guarantees company ships free and safe passage through the Straits of Malacca. By Favour and Permission The Brittany Company (BC) is a state-chartered, joint-stock monopoly organisation formed by an act of the States of Conti on 14 June 2009 following the purchase of the dukedom of Brittany, which it rules by favour and permission ''of the States.'' The company's Charter of Privileges reflects the bailiwick’s reluctance to allocate excessive fiscal resources to support its dependencies by effectively privatising the administration of the old duchy. The act facilitates the transfer of government functions to the Brittany Company for the duration of its charter with an explicit mandate to enact legislation, exercise police powers and levy taxes (the BC administers its own tax system within guidelines laid down by the Council of Ten), thus conferring upon the company quasi-regal powers nominally attributed to the States of Conti. The BC's charter is subject to review and renewal after 12 years. The Act of Dissolution promulgated on 21 April 2016 by the States of Conti in their capacity as the true sovereign and proprietor of Brittany, formally abolished the Breton monarchy whose throne had been vacant since 2009 and established the March of Brittany in its wake. Much to the insistence of the Brittany Company, the act reaffirmed the nobility's privileged legal status. The company's intercession ensured that the composition of Brittany's only elective body, the Dael Breizh, would remain unaltered. The States of Brittany, or Dael Breizh in Breton, is the highest judicial body in the former ducal lands. The States are composed of delegates from the urban merchant patriciate and hereditary members of the landed nobility. By virtue of the extensive legislative and executive authority conferred by its charter, the Brittany Company has displaced the States and the traditional corporate elite as the prime source of political power in Brittany. For the Dael, which had initially expected from the States of Conti the continuation of their ancient privileges and liberties, the most contentious issue concerns the loss of their extensive fiscal powers. In particular, the States of Brittany insist that monetary levies ought not to be raised without their prior consent. The question of institutional reform, in substance the issue of self-administration and taxation remains a point of contention between the Breton polity and the States of Conti. Having been deprived of their customary rights of consultation and deliberation with the advent of company rule, the States' powers are confined to the exercise of their judicial prerogatives. The States of Brittany only retain limited oversight of taxation in time of war. On 20 December 2016 the States of Conti approved an act prohibiting the purchase of Breton hereditary titles by Conti citizens, a practice criticised for undermining the republican ethos of the Conti citizenry and antagonising the aristocratic element of the States of Brittany. Principled citizens soon argued that the act constituted a breach of the social contract between citizens and state and launched a public petition to overturn it. The bailiwick does not have a court with the authority to test laws against the Instrument of Government or to adjudicate on constitutional disputes. Instead, it leaves it to private citizens to challenge laws deemed contrary to the spirit of the Instrument of Government by drumming up support for a public petition to repeal the controversial legislation. By garnering sufficient signatures to force through a referendum and then winning the contest, the electorate rendered the act of 20 December 2016 null and void. Situated at the mouth of the Rance estuary on the northern coast of Brittany, the Free City of Saint-Malo (48.38°N 2.00°W) is Conti's major commercial gateway to its mainland dominions administered by the Brittany Company. Owing to St Malo's prominence as the bailiwick's chief emporium on the continent, the States of Conti declared the city a corpus separatum under the provisions of the Charter of Liberties of the Free City of Saint-Malo conceded on 26 July 2009. The charter institutes a council of 12 elected members, collectively known as the Corporation of Saint-Malo, entrusted with the government of the city under the leadership of the Provost of the Merchants. The document confers upon the city all powers of self-governance and privileges associated to free city status and confines Conti’s involvement in municipal government to prerogatives pertaining to defence and foreign affairs. Instrument of War The Naval Service and the office of Captain-General of the Sea were established by the Naval Service Act on 8 October 2009. The Captain-General of the Sea, appointed for a two-and-half-year term by the States of Conti, is responsible for overseeing the administration of the navy under the nominal ministry of the Councilor of State for War. In practice, the office enjoys pre-eminence in all naval policy matters through the direct administration of military shipyards, drydocks, maintenance bases and the Institute of Naval Warfare (founded on 25 January 2014). The Naval Service maintains 24 capital ships in full commission. Standing at ƒ1.82 million, the Naval Service's annual budget accounts for 45.86 per cent of the bailiwick's total military expenditure (ƒ3.97 million). The Naval Service operates three military ports in the home waters: Conti, Brest (48.23°N 4.29°W) and Lorient (47.45°N 3.22°W). On 21 January 2014 the Naval Service and the Company of the Orient established a joint naval station at the foot of the Table Mountain, north of the Cape of Good Hope. Fort Conti (33.55°S 18.25°E) is the bailiwick's only naval facility in the southern hemisphere. By March 2014 the Naval Service had extended its territorial control to Fort Conti's immediate hinterland to protect Conti and Breton settlers who had illegally begun colonising the coastal plain abutting the westernmost ridge of the great South African escarpment. The Naval Service's policy of territorial consolidation went ahead despite opposition by the Company of the Orient which views Fort Conti as little more than a way-station for its shipping bound to Asia and has since repeatedly declined to extend its involvement beyond the joint control of the naval station and the posting of a small garrison of company troops within its perimeter. As such the burden of administration of the New Settlements falls solely on the Naval Service for the Company of the Orient has no appetite for extending direct dominion over the city's sparsely populated hinterland. The naval branch of the military is thus paradoxically the largest private landowner in territories under Conti overlordship (with the exception of chartered companies). The first census undertaken on 7 May 2014 recorded 7,062 citizens of Conti and Brittany residing in the New Settlements. This figure had increased by 26.05 per cent to 8,902 by the time of the second census of 13 November 2016. The Naval Service's model of administration in the New Settlements is an experiment in minimalist government confined to the functions of law and order. The Defence Reform Act adopted by the States of Conti on 9 June 2010 created the General Service, the nucleus of Conti’s first standing army, composed of professional soldiers organised into permanent regiments raised, equipped and financed by the States. The act lessened the bailiwick’s over-reliance on civic militia (known as the Territorial Service) and mercenary companies for its defence, reformed the long-standing practice of raising temporary armies of paid soldiers in wartime and abolished the purchase of officer commissions. The Territorial Service, retained as an auxiliary unit of the General Service, is entrusted to support civic authorities in preserving domestic order. Responsibility for military commissions and promotions is assigned to the Council of Ten. However the appointment of the General Service's Captain-General of the Land Forces is made jointly by the Council of Ten and the States (with the customary phrase: Given the trustworthy account we have received of his/her virtues and merits, we have chosen him/her, as by this commission we choose and depute him/her, to be Captain-General of the Land Forces with all the usual authority, power, honours, prerogatives and emoluments). At the States' discretion a committee of deputies can accompany the Captain-General on campaign and partake in major military deliberations. The General Service is a proponent of a combined arms doctrine whereby different types of forces (reconnaissance, infantry, artillery, air support, engineering and logistics) are combined within the same formation and brought under a single command to achieve tactical superiority on the battlefield. The Air Service is the military aviation branch of the General Service. The General Service's motto (adopted on 9 May 2016) is: Non inultus premor ('I cannot be touched unavenged'). The Military Intelligence Service, created by an act of the States of Conti on 23 November 2013, amalgamates the previously fragmented intelligence, counter-intelligence and operational capabilities of Conti's military branches into a single centralised organisational and command structure. The funding of the Breton Regiment (formally the Ducal Regiment of Brittany until 21 April 2016), is a joint-responsibility of the Brittany Company and the States of Brittany. In order to mitigate the effect of rising fiscal pressure, the BC and the Dael Breizh can raise funds necessary to finance wartime military expenditures by jointly issuing interest-yielding bonds. The Breton Regiment is the only component of the Conti military permitted to supplement its ranks with hired mercenaries in wartime. Technology Procurement Fund The Technology Procurement Act enacted on 1 September 2010 established the Technology Procurement Fund with the mission to stimulate foreign direct investment involving technology transfer and facilitate the acquisition of technology by Conti-based enterprises. The fund is the beneficiary of an annual public contribution of ƒ2.16 million. Its Chief Executive spearheads Conti's technology accumulation drive and reports to the Councillor of State for Research and Technology. The Letter of Command is the document of reference for technology deals operated or facilitated by the Technology Procurement Fund. The letter addressed to the fund's Chief Executive is published annually in January by the Councillor of State for Research and Technology in compliance with the Technology Procurement Act. The document sets out stringent procurement objectives for the calendar year. The 2011 letter, the first of its kind, published on 15 January set a target of 500 technology units per month amounting to a total of 6000 technology units for the entirety of the year, an amount superior to the volume of technology acquired by Conti by the end of 2010. On 10 November 2014 the fund reported the accumulation of an all-time high record of 23,132.19 units of technology. The Technology Procurement Revision Act of 12 August 2013 modified the fund’s governing statutes to address the rising cost of technology procurement resulting from intensifying competition and a dwindling supply pool. As funding requirements for 2013 doubled to ƒ4.32 million – twice the fund’s annual state subsidy, the Council of Ten sought to attract private investment to surmount the rising financial challenges and bridge the funding gap. The revised legislation paved the way for the part-privatisation of the fund and advanced its transformation into a fully-fledged commercial entity contracted with the management of public assets. Under the new arrangement, the bailiwick sold a 49.99 per cent stake in the fund to private investors thus retaining a controlling majority stake. A fraction of the profit financed the rehousing of the State Archives (the bailiwick's central repository of official documents) to a new state-of-the-art, purpose-built facility within the New Guildhall. The second innovation of the act is the creation of Conti's sovereign wealth fund under the management of the Technology Procurement Fund: the TechFund+. The act prescribes that any excess liquidity created by a government budget surplus or proceeds from the sale of state assets be transferred to the TechFund+. Even then, it remains within the States’ prerogatives to sanction extraordinary public expenditure (unbudgeted appropriations) on a case by case basis. Although it has been the adopted practice to restrict these to city beautification initiatives and projects of scientific, cultural or historical public interest. One such occurrence is the purchase on 14 September 2015 of the Selden Map of China for the benefit of the State Archives (at a cost of ƒ63,000 to the public purse). Office of Despatches The Office of Despatches is a civil service secretariat created on 10 May 2016 to assist the Council of Ten in managing foreign affairs. It derives its name from the diplomatic missives, memoranda, notes and reports from the bailiwick's envoys, trade representatives and foreign agents streaming back to Conti for compilation and analysis. The office has since matured from a clerical clearing house into a bureaucratic power-centre within the state machinery, influential enough to shape foreign policy. Conti mostly relies on temporary envoys to conduct its diplomatic business and as a result only maintains a limited number of permanent diplomatic outposts: *On 10 May 2016 following the establishment of diplomatic relations with Ravenspur, Conti dispatched a Resident Minister to set up permanent representation in the country's capital, Warszawa. The legation occupies the first floor at 12 Senatorska Street. On 29 December 2016 the Council of Ten approved a secret policy document designed to protect Conti's Baltic trade should Ravenspur experience a catastrophic institutional collapse and cease to exist as a sovereign state (as Imperial Ravenspur did in 2007 after the traumatic events chronicled in the nation's history as The Partition). *Conti's first Resident Minister to Russia presented his letter of credence to the President of the Russian Federation on 11 May 2016. Conti's legation in Moscow is located at 1 Petrovskiye Line Street (Петровские Линии улица, 1). *The Company of the Orient's envoy to the Sultanate of Johor, traditionally appointed by the Chief Factor of Singapore independently from the Directorial Committee, is also invested with plenipotentiary authority to represent the Council of Ten. The crowning achievement of the company's diplomatic undertakings in Johor is the Third Capitulation conceded by the Sultan on 17 June 2016 which extends the provisions of the first capitulation to all citizens of Conti based in Singapore and the realms of the Sultan. Conti merchants, whether employed by the company or not, henceforth ceased to be subject to the jurisdiction of Johor courts. Resident Minister is the highest ranking title in the bailiwick's diplomatic service. The cost of running a legation abroad is only partially covered by public funds. Expenses incurred for gifts, hosting dinners, entertaining guests and the furnishing of the Resident Minister's private quarters are intentionally left out of a legation's operating budget. Resident Ministers are expected to cover the shortfall at considerable personal expense which in turn has led to an overrepresentation of the merchant class in diplomatic appointments. At the end of his term of office the returning Resident Minister is subjected to an inquiry into the conduct of his ministry. Since the ordinance of 17 July 2016 regulating civil service clothing, clerks of the Office of Despatches wear a distinctive uniform consisting of a scarlet frock coat, a silver shirt, black trousers and a black student cap. Urbs Nobilis Contiae